


I Won't Be Silent (Not Even For You)

by Solena2



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, One Shot, POV The Hollow Knight, Pre-Canon, Seriously Fuck PK Though, religous themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27540745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solena2/pseuds/Solena2
Summary: What was the point of any of it, in the end?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	I Won't Be Silent (Not Even For You)

**Author's Note:**

> Someone give this kid a hug

They claw for the surface, the masks of their brethren breaking against the force of their desperate bid for escape. They can feel the darkness of the void around them, an oppressive weight that saps their strength far more than their frantic attempts to reach the top of the sea of bodies they’re buried under.

Finally, finally, one of their arms breaks the surface, and they pull themself out.

**No cost too great.**

The words reverberate in their mind as they stand tall atop the discarded shells of their siblings.

\--

At the summit, finally. Desperately scrabbling for purchase against the smooth steel of the platform, they face Him.

He glows, a pale light like nothing they’ve ever seen, and His presence seems almost a magnet to them, like His very existence pulls at parts of them they didn’t know they had, and they look up at Him with awe, incapable of tearing their eyes away.

The Wyrm turns, and leaves them alone on the platform just as one of their siblings leaps not quite far enough, gripping tight to the very tip.

**No mind to think.**

Some of the only words they’ve ever heard, the meaning seared into their conscious just as the shining brand was seared upon their Creator, just as His beauty was seared into their being, and they turn their head, just for a moment, to regard the vessel behind them.

For a single moment, they wonder what would happen, if they reached out a hand and pulled the vessel up. If they disregarded the five sentences that give their life purpose. If they made a choice that was completely their own, and helped someone.

But moments are ephemeral as the summer breeze, and this one shatters just as quickly as it occurred when they turn away, leaving their sibling to fall down to the abyss just as those who came before did.

\--

The Hollow Knight stops dead in the middle of practicing with their nail, and the weapon clatters to the ground as their hands loosen from exhaustion.

They sway slightly, their heavy armor only making the slight motion more pronounced. Their knees feel weak, as if they’ll give out at any moment, and their vision swims just slightly.

They know they are to be raised and trained to prime form, the discipline instilled by their skill with a nail helping them to become stronger, to be powerful enough to safely contain the Radiance, but they are oh-so tired and they’ve only made it halfway through the exercise.

They sink to a kneeling position for a moment, their knees meeting the cold marble of the palace floor at a speed high enough to hurt just slightly. They know they must continue, but they are not certain if they can.

**No will to break.**

The phrase from so many years ago flits briefly through the mind they wish they did not have, and with it comes the resolve to be what their King needs from them.

They pick up their nail once more and use it to force themself up to their feet, before continuing their practice.

\--

The chains are like ice against their shell, and there are sores where the Radiance has forced their body to struggle against their confinement.

The pain is blinding, but it is nothing compared to the knowledge that they’ve failed, the knowledge that for all their effort, the world would have been better off if they had tumbled into the abyss, if they had been just another corpse to push aside as some better, more hollow vessel struggled to ascend.

Something inside them breaks, then. Some fundamental part of them shatters, never again to be whole.

For the first time in an eternity, the Radiance manages to make progress in Her quest to make them bow to her will.

Their mask cracks, the first sound they’ve heard aside from the rattling of the chains since they were sealed away. An orange light fills their eyes, and She raises their head high, triumph flooding the mindscape they share.

**No voice to cry suffering.**

As they remember the words from their birth, the words they’ve built their whole life around, the words that were the first domino on a long path to where they hang now, suspended by seals that weren’t even made for them, merely the God they were built to contain, for the first time they make a conscious choice to disregard their Father.

The Radiance can control their body, but they too are able to briefly take Her powers for their own use, and they use what little will they have left to take her voice, just for a moment.

The Hollow Knight screams, because if they’re to die a failure, they’ll die having demanded from the world at least one thing.

If they are to die a failure, if they are to die with their purpose unfulfilled, they demand that the world hear them.

They demand that someone hear them, just once.

**Author's Note:**

> In this house we love and respect THK


End file.
